Presentation given at New Frontiers in Qualitative Longitudinal Research. Cardiff. 8th February 2013.

1. Multimodality in Qualitative
Longitudinal Research
Fiona Shirani – New Frontiers in Qualitative Longitudinal
Research. Cardiff. 8th February 2013.

2. Why multimodality in QLR?
▪ Sustaining participant engagement
▪ Extending temporal horizons
▪ Dynamic – capturing changes/continuities
through time
▪ Making the invisible tangible

3. Issues to consider
▪ Participant or researcher generated?
▪ Within or outside of the research encounter?
▪ Ethical obligations
▪ Analysis – of themselves or for talk
generated?

4. Energy Biographies
Energy Biographies is led by Prof. Karen Henwood. Other research team members are Prof. Nick Pidgeon and
Drs Catherine Butler, Karen Parkhill and Fiona Shirani
▪ How do people use energy as part of their everyday life?
▪ How do people’s biographical experiences and aspirations
influence their energy use?
▪ How can visual methods be used to explore views and
experiences of energy use?
▪ 4 case site areas across the UK – 68 interviews/ 74
participants round 1, 36 participants rounds 2 and 3. 6
months between interviews.

5. Between interviews 1 and 2
Activity 1 – participant-generated photos
• Participants were asked to take
photographs of things they felt
related to energy use in relation to
four themes
• Two week period for each theme.
Participants were sent texts to
remind them of the theme
• Pictures then formed the basis for
discussion in interview 2
‘I found it quite useful having the groups you know the focuses I think cos otherwise I would have yeah I think I’d have kind of tailed off’
Emmanuelle

6. Between interviews 2 and 3
▪ Activity 2 – text-prompted photos
• Text messages sent to
participants at 10 intervals
between August-November
2012 asking them to take a
picture of what they were doing
at the time
• From these pictures we created
photo narratives, to be
discussed with participants in
interview 3
“No I enjoyed the fact of like stopping to think about what I’m doing because I think you know I spend my day just going through the day
without actually thinking about what I’m doing so it was nice to stop and think, yeah, yeah I enjoyed it.” Sarah

7. During interview 3
▪ Activity 3 – video clips
“they were coming from a time of war and
• During interview 3 participants are shown deprivation and they had in the beginning
clips from a 1950s and 2010s version of of the 20th century there was a lot of
what a home of the future might look like economic problems so all this is a part of
• The clips facilitate talk about the future, the past and we’re looking into the future
which can otherwise be difficult to discuss which is the opposite. So it’s abundance,
it’s an easy life, not easy life in bad way but
in a good way that you don’t have to do a
“ if our population grows so much that the land
lot of chores and you can enjoy your life
shrinks that much that we really can’t produce
more” Suzanna
enough food maybe we’ll have to look at something on
the sea you know islands of growth or something like
this without any soil or anything like that so could be a
bit like out of the box that we might need in 50 years
time to go back to” Dennis

8. Summary
▪ Participant-generated photos – participant-
led discussion
▪ Text prompted photos – providing a point of
comparison
▪ Videos – extending temporal horizons
www.energybiographies.org